1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to broadcast materials, and more particularly to a system and method for coordinating the delivery of supplemental information with broadcast materials.
2. Related Art
The proliferation of processors and processor-based systems in recent years has led to a tremendous increase in the ability of businesses, industry and individuals to share information. Most computers and workstations in today""s homes and offices are connected in some manner to another computer or workstation, either locally or remotely. An early form of such inter-connection of computing systems is the local area network (LAN). Using LAN technology, several computers, workstations, peripherals, or other related devices can be connected to share data among one another and to share network resources.
The Internet can be thought of as an extension of local area network technology. The Internet originally began as a communication network through which government researchers, scientists and other personnel could exchange data or other information between offices and facilities throughout the world. Eventually, the Internet became accessible to the public. Initially, the public was slow to embrace the Internet, and it seemed as if the Internet would remain nothing more than a way for a select group of technologists to exchange e-mails and other data or information. Eventually, however, entrepreneurs who envisioned the growth of the consumer market for Internet services were able to attract a large number of consumers into the fold. As a result, a sort of snowball effect ensued in which more and more consumers become Internet users, and in turn, more and more businesses rushed to get web pages set up on an Internet server. With more businesses offering information, products and services on the Web, more consumers were attracted to the Internet. This cycle rapidly fed on itself virtually creating an explosion on the Internet.
However, the proliferation of the Internet did not stop with the provision of web pages to the Internet users, or web surfers. In the true capitalistic spirit, providers of popular web pages found that they were able to sell advertising space on their web pages. Thus, the Internet became not only a way for businesses to advertise their own businesses on their web pages, but also a way for advertisers to include their ads on others"" web pages.
Seemingly overnight, the Internet had transformed into the new advertising medium of the decade. Virtually every business and industry jumped on to the Internet bandwagon. On top of that, hundreds, if not thousands, of new businesses were created to offer Internet-related services. It seemed as if just about everyone was able to capitalize on this new medium.
However, in spite of this proliferation, there were still a few business that were left out of the Internet craze. One example of such a business is the radio industry. Although stations could offer their own web sites on the Internet, such sites typically were not popular among the web surfers, and thus were not a good source of advertising revenues. Thus, even though radio stations could participate in the Internet, their only gains from doing so were PR-related.
Eventually, enterprising web developers decided that they could offer a mechanism by which one or more radio stations or radio networks could offer their broadcast materials over the Internet. One popular Internet site offering this service is www.broadcast.com, although there are others. While many radio stations have agreed to provide their programming across the Internet by such service providers, most have found that this has not led to an increase their advertising revenues. Although these providers offer an excellent service to radio stations and their listeners, most advertisers are not willing to pay a premium for advertising slots simply because the broadcast material is additionally offered to listeners over the Internet. Thus, even though these services allowed radio stations to further participate in the Internet-related industry, their ability to fully take advantage of Internet opportunities is still somewhat limited.
Additional background information on the use of computer networks as a broadcast medium is available from xe2x80x9cBROADCAST AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM AND METHOD,xe2x80x9d U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/961,314, filed Oct. 30, 1997, now pending, and xe2x80x9cAUDIO CONTENT PLAYER METHODS AND ARTICLES OF MANUFACTURE,xe2x80x9d U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/976,971, filed Nov. 25, 1997, abandoned; both of which are fully incorporated by reference herein as though set forth in full.
The present invention is directed toward systems and methods for providing enhanced features for the delivery of broadcast material to a listener, viewer or, more generally, a user. According to one aspect of the invention, supplemental materials can be provided to a user in a coordinated fashion with the broadcast materials being delivered. The supplemental materials can be provided in a coordinated fashion such that they relate to the actual broadcast materials as they are being streamed or otherwise delivered to the user. For example, according to one embodiment, the broadcast material is delivered to the user in segments such as, for example, tracks of music, advertisements, and promotional materials in a radio broadcast. In this embodiment, the supplemental materials can be coordinated with the individual segments (e.g., tracks) such that supplemental materials relating to the segments can be provided as the segments are being provided to the user.
Supplemental materials can include, for example, images, video clips, audio clips, data, or other materials that may be provided to the user in conjunction with the broadcast materials. The supplemental materials can also include advertising information that is provided to the user during particular segments of the broadcast material. In one embodiment, this advertising information can be coordinated with the particular segments of the broadcast material such that the value of the advertising is enhanced.
One example application of this aspect of the invention is found in the broadcast of radio broadcast materials over the Internet. According to this example application, the radio broadcast materials can include a plurality of tracks that can be streamed to a user via the Internet. The tracks can include, for example, music tracks, advertising tracks, DJ voice or introduction tracks, promotional tracks, and any other track that a station my wish to broadcast as part of its broadcast material. In one embodiment, the tracks are provided along with program data that can indicate, for example, an identification of the track, the type of track, and other pertinent or relevant information regarding the particular track being broadcast at that time. This information can be provided to an Internet broadcast service provider that xe2x80x9cbroadcastsxe2x80x9d the broadcast materials and the program data to the listener""s Internet terminal.
The listener receives the broadcast material and the program data via the Internet connection and plays it on his or her computer, workstation or other Internet terminal. This can be a web page type player or a downloaded player that is resident on the user""s terminal. When the user""s terminal receives a track to be played, the user""s terminal takes the program data associated with that track and uses that data to access one or more servers to retrieve the supplemental information.
In one embodiment, the data can be used to access a first server to directly retrieve the supplemental information to be coordinated with the broadcast material. In another embodiment, the program data can be used to retrieve locational or other identification information from the first server, and use this retrieved information to retrieve the supplemental information from a second server. In yet another embodiment, some or all of the supplemental information may be stored at the listener""s terminal. In this case, the program data is used to retrieve the supplemental information from local storage.
According to another aspect of the invention, a history bar can be provided in conjunction with the broadcast material. The history bar can be used to display a history of the segments or tracks of the broadcast material that were broadcast to the listener or other listeners. The history bar can allow the listener or user to retrieve supplemental information about or pertaining to a previous segment that had been broadcast. Thus, if the user wishes to, for example, obtain information about a song track that was played in the recent past, or obtain additional information about a product that was advertised in the recent past, the user can select the particular item from the history bar, and retrieve this supplemental information.
In one embodiment, any information or supplemental information that was retrieved during initial playing of the subject track can be saved locally, for example in a circular type buffer or a FIFO or LIFO buffer. Thus, this information is available to the user without the need to retrieve the supplemental information again from one or more servers. Alternatively, only the program data needs to be stored and associated with each track. In this alternative, the user terminal uses the program data to retrieve the supplemental information. An advantage of the history bar is that it can allow the user to in effect go back in time to obtain information about a segment that was played in the past. In this manner, the information relating to the segment is not lost to the user once the time for the segment has past.
A method and apparatus for facilitating the coordination of visual advertisements with audio broadcast material if provided in xe2x80x9cSYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COORDINATING COMMMUNICATIONS NETWORK ADVERTISING MATERIALS,xe2x80x9d Lyon and Lyon Ser. No. 09/163,288, filed on even date herewith and which is owned by common assignee, and which is incorporated herein by reference as though set forth in full.
Further features and advantages of the invention as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.